


Reciprocity

by yfere



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, UST, and talking around things like the shady motherfuckers they are, c2e56, so much UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 03:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18307247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yfere/pseuds/yfere
Summary: Fjord tries to have a conversation with Caleb, and is briefly sidetracked. Post-C2E56





	Reciprocity

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent, possibly incoherent, and will be immediately irrelevant. Just my brand, wouldn't you say? It's impossible NOT to want to write about that harness, though...

It wasn’t like they hadn’t already talked, all seven of them together, once they had the chance. But it was always different when it was all of them, Fjord getting pulled in despite himself to playing referee, to stopping people from yelling or getting too worked up. The urge to say his own piece, as long as they were airing their worries and grievances. But he realized, after it was over, that he’d missed a few things, skimmed over what he’d really thought while trying to keep the peace—again. And some of it felt important, and there were things he wanted to know, that he couldn’t ask about right then.

He needed to talk to him.

“Are we not rooming together?” Caduceus asked, as Fjord stepped out the door. “Oh, you left your armor here. So I guess we are?”

“I’m just heading out for a few minutes.”

“Good luck,” he said. “It’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry.”

Which was—okay. A little uncanny. He’d never get over how Caduceus did that. “Just a few minutes,” he repeated. “But don’t wait up for me.”

 

 

Once it was clear to Caleb that they were being given some choice in their rooms rather than having them assigned, he’d been very particular about where he and Nott were going to stay. Towards the back, away from the window-facing rooms, near the curve of a hallway. He didn’t say anything about it, didn’t explain why he was being so choosy, but Fjord thought he was getting more used to Caleb’s brand of caution by now, and did his best to direct the others to similar rooms.

The doors were all arcane locked—they’d exchanged the passwords to each others’ rooms already, but Fjord didn’t want to just bust in on him. He knocked. “Caleb, you in there?”

Silence. Then, “You can come in.”

Speaking the password didn’t seem to help though, because the door still wouldn’t budge when he tried it. “Caleb, did you—did you bar this thing?!”

He was just beginning to debate the merits verses drawbacks of trying to blink past the door when he heard a scraping sound, and Caleb opened it.

And what he saw made Fjord catch his breath, just a little. Caleb’s hair was wet, darkened and pressed down a little from its usual riotous curls. It had been a while since Fjord had seen his skin cleared of shit and dirt, and longer still since he’d had the experience of tracking on his neck and forearms the flush from the hot bath he had just, it seemed, stepped out of. Easy living—it looked good on him.

Like Fjord, though, he was still wearing his usual ratty clothing—maybe, maybe feeling that same unease and distrust at the silky robes laid out for them that Fjord had felt, when no one else seemed to. Too rich, too much, on top of everything else.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said, gesturing at the chair he had apparently just taken from barricading the door. “I don’t know how many magic users there are here—I can only assume. It isn’t hard to imitate a voice.”

 _Don’t I know it._ He tried not to think too much about the barricade, about how Caleb didn’t seem to trust people not to know the password either. “Just me, though. Just Fjord.”

“Oh. So you aren’t going by ‘Master’ anymore?”

 _Damn him._ With that monotone, Fjord couldn’t tell if he was fucking with him or not. Was that a twinkle in his eye, or was it just the weird chandeliers strung up all over the place? He couldn’t tell, and the blood rushing to his face couldn’t either. His mouth felt suddenly dry.

_Don’t lick your lips. Not the time._

“Maybe not tonight,” he said, with his best drawl. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Caleb stepped back to let him inside, expression shuttered. “Not with the rest of the group? We’ve done a lot of talking.”

“No, I wanted to speak with you privately.” He peered around the room.“Nott not in?”

“Not at the moment, no. She’s in conference with Leylas Krynn.”

“On her own?”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “The Empress requested to speak with her. You think she cannot keep herself safe?”

“No—it’s only that a few hours ago…you know what? Never mind.” He’d never entirely understand how defensive those two were about each other—best not to start an argument about it. Besides, the glint of wire wrapped around Caleb’s knuckles told him he wasn’t really at peace with the situation, either. The wire, the room, the barricade—Caleb had just stepped out of a bath and already had his books holstered at his side, eyes flickering over the room as if looking for peepholes—or else he was just avoiding looking at Fjord. And Fjord wanted to put him at ease for this, but that was never really a thing they… _did._ Somehow while he wasn’t looking the others had figured it out, Nott and Beau and Caduceus and even Jester, a bit, how to make the man relax a little. But Fjord was just as in the dark as ever, watching Caleb get stiffer, and stiffer, with every passing moment. Would it help to touch him right now? Probably not. Nothing to do but push forward.

“Since you mentioned it though—before anything else, the first thing I wanted to do was apologize.”

Caleb startled slightly, and turned to face him, blatant confusion on his face. That was a relief, anyway.

“What for?”

“Beau came to talk to me—her _and_ Caduceus. I know I went a little, overboard, with the harnesses and orders and shit.” His ears were far too hot. He hoped it wasn’t visible on his face.

Caleb waved his hand. “No, that’s fine. For all we knew, that was the way to keep us safe. It was not a bad plan. Besides, that is the least of our concerns.”

 _That’s not the point?_ “I’m—glad you feel that way. Are you sure you’re doing all right, though, after all that?” Because from the way Beau had been talking—

He couldn’t bear to look directly at Caleb. Looking around desperately for something else to focus on he found it—the harness neatly folded atop Caleb’s pack. Which, if anything, was worse than looking at Caleb—especially since he didn’t tear his eyes away from it quickly enough for Caleb not to notice. _Damn it._

“I am doing all right. It wasn’t how I would have preferred to spend the evening.” Caleb hesitated for a moment.“I remember Beau had an idea about getting back at the two of you.” He let the silence hang while Fjord stared at him, then at the harness, then back at him. He didn’t—it was one thing for it to be Caleb—for a ruse—

“I don’t think it would—fit,” he said, voice hovering somewhere around a question.

And whatever was making Caleb nervous seemed to drain away for a moment, Caleb’s movements fluid and decisive as he approached Fjord, closer, closer, until his chin was tilted just slightly upwards to meet Fjord’s eyes. “You only have a few inches on me. The straps can adjust. Will you do it?”

Fjord’s head was spinning. Would he do it—and it felt like a challenge, like a kind of dare. Felt too like he was saying, _I did this for you, can you return the favor_ , and Fjord could never be sure how much Caleb was testing him, how much he trusted him, how much he just wanted to push. And Fjord was a little curious. And he— _he_ trusted, he wanted to show that he did.

“Okay,” he said.

Caleb gave him a look. “You do not have to.”

“I mean it, yes, as long as—as long as you don’t—maybe don’t mention—” he couldn’t finish the sentence. Not the kind of courtesy he was extending earlier, after all.

“You don’t have to worry. I’ll make a bubble for the room. See how well you can put it on.”

It was good that the spell took up so much of Caleb’s concentration, because Fjord was short circuiting, just a little. What exactly was he doing? He’d come for a conversation and he—this was not that

The leather was clean and surprisingly supple in his hands—not what it had felt like at Zorths’ shop, when he’d put it on Caleb. So Caleb had at least washed it since then—what else? He brought it up to his nose, smelled something deep and sweet. Oil? Beeswax? Hard to tell, but it was a familiar smell, probably something he’d picked up from Caleb’s coat before.

Caleb made another pass around the room, and Fjord was going to have to hurry to get to work on this. Caleb was right that the straps would adjust for him—not that it would be very comfortable, but then, Fjord had asked for it to be designed that way. He couldn’t tighten them once he had it on, though, as the buckles were placed in awkward places to reach. So in the end it was more haphazardly draped over him than anything. And—he didn’t know what to do about the leg and arm restraints. Should he try to fasten his legs, buckle them together? Did Caleb want him to—how would he react if he didn’t? If he _did?_ And where should he be—should he stay standing in the middle of the room, or should he sit in one of the chairs, or on the bed?

At about that time, Caleb’s low chanting died down, a slight shimmer and a shift in temperature telling Fjord that the bubble had completed around them. Caleb turned around to look at him, and—oh. Oh, he was fucked. The last time Caleb had looked at him like that, he was seconds away from throwing a fireball at him.

Caleb took a step towards him, and then stopped, looking at Fjord as if he was waiting for something. Fjord swallowed—gods his mouth was dry—and nodded. Caleb closed the distance and tightened the buckles until they were snug—pressing, but not painfully, into the flesh beneath Fjord’s clothing.“ _Gut,_ ” he pronounced when he finished. He’d left Fjord’s arms and legs free. “How do you feel?”

 _That’s a touch complicated to explain right now._ “I feel fine.”

“You need to be careful about these things. I have one or two bruises from this harness, now.”

Fjord shifted awkwardly. “I’m—sorry, about that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.”

That was a little too much, too, sending his mind whirling after the thought of where the bruises might be, he didn’t see them, and what they must look like, and how Caleb didn’t object to rough handling, and how he—

“I’d like for you to do something for me,” Caleb said, pulling him out of it. And this was it, if Caleb really wanted to get back at him. Fjord had asked him to clean his boots—would Caleb ask the same? Would he ask something else? Would he—

“I want you to mess up the bed.”

 _…How?_ He could think of a couple of ways to do it, some less innocent than others. But Caleb’s face was impassive, and Fjord couldn’t tell what he meant, what he wanted. He approached the bed cautiously—it was gorgeous, he realized, perfectly made, with silken sheets, feathered pillows. He tossed one of the pillows experimentally in his hands for a moment, before hurling it to the corner of the room. He tore the sheets from the mattress and wadded them up, his claws scoring the fabric. He wrestled the mattress out of the bedframe, chucked it to the side. The bedframe itself he couldn’t do much about, it being bolted to the floor. He considered damaging it with a spell for a moment, but settled for kicking at it until a chip came flying off of the corner. He glanced over at Caleb, who nodded.

“The chair next. The one by the bed. I want you to overturn it.”

It was a large chair, but not bolted in place like the rest of the furniture. With some effort Fjord flipped it, shoved it so that it scraped across the crystalline floor. With some surprise, he realized that he felt good. Like something tight in his chest had finally unwound itself and relaxed. He clawed the cushion out of the seat, punctured it so the stuffing leaked, and threw it in the corner by the pillows.

“Take the drawer out of the stand.” Fjord did, and dropped it unceremoniously on the ground. It was made out of sturdy stuff, and would be difficult to break. But before Fjord could think of how to do it, Caleb spoke up again.

“The papers inside. You can tear them up.” So Fjord reached in and plucked out a sheaf of papers—and this was a little odd, Caleb was always asking and begging for paper—he could see Caleb’s handwriting on some of the pages, and worried even more. But he shred them all the same, until he stood in the center of a scattered pile of something resembling confetti.

“You look thirsty. I want you to pour a glass of water.” Fjord took the cup from the top of the stand, filled it near the brim with water from the jug. He wondered for a moment if Caleb would ask him to bring it to him, to hold it up to his lips—that’s what _Fjord_ would ask, after all, and the thought of it sent a bolt through him.

“Drink it, please,” Caleb said. So he was wrong—but he _was_ thirsty, and the water cool and soothing in his mouth. Caleb waited for him to finish, stayed silent while he poured another glass and drank that as well. Then, “I want you to shatter the glass.”

Fjord threw it at the wall, stared at the sparkling fragments of its remains on the ground.

“The jug, as well.” Fjord grinned and raised his hand. The water in the jug spun and spun around, he could feel it in his head, forming a whirlpool of pressure. He clenched his hand into a fist and the jug broke into a heap on the stand, with the water, still not released from Fjord’s control, hovering in a shifting mass in the air.

“Yes, that’s very impressive,” Caleb said, in that strange tone of his that Fjord privately theorized was humor. “I’m satisfied. I don’t have anything else to ask.”

But Fjord wasn’t quite done yet. A sudden urge possessed him, and he had just enough time to bring the water hurtling towards Caleb’s face to release, drenching him. He’d been hoping for a laugh, but the flash of a smile Caleb gave him was just as worth it, really.

Caleb kicked over the overturned mattress so that it lay flat on the ground, and collapsed onto it, staring up at the ceiling. One of his hands twirled through the small pile of torn paper at its side. Suddenly feeling unsure, Fjord followed, avoiding the shattered glass to sit at the head of the mattress. “Caleb, if you don’t mind me asking…what was that?” It was something, after all, to trash a guest room of royalty. Did Caleb mean to leave things like this? Did he have a plan to set the room back to rights, or did he not care?

“It was a very hard day today,” Caleb said, which was true, even if it wasn’t much of an answer. Fjord decided not to push. “How are you feeling?”

The events of the day crashed through Fjord’s mind. What could he say? That he was confused? Grateful? Terrified? Awestruck? And then there was that other thing, that warm thing that had been simmering just beneath his skin for a while now, threatening to overflow. Caleb probably meant something more immediate, though. “I feel—good. Happy to be alive, mostly. Like you said, it was a hard day. How—how are you feeling?”

“Better.” Caleb sighed, then sat up, reaching a hand out for Fjord’s buckles. Fjord leaned back. “Hold on a second. I meant it when I said I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t quite finish what I meant to say.”

“You can talk just as well with the harness off, _ja?_ ”

“Maybe, but—wait.” He couldn’t explain it, how sure he was that if Caleb removed the harness, that he would stop listening, that the conversation would be over. The creeping feeling that maybe Caleb was trying to avoid a conversation this whole time. And Fjord didn’t want that to happen—he might never get the chance to say what he wanted to again, gods knew how many conversations he’d missed with Caleb already—Darktow, Felderwin, all of it, everything before that, and after. Things couldn’t just go on like this, with them not saying anything.

Caleb lowered his hand, and Fjord’s pulse thrummed in his head. How was he supposed to approach this? Caleb never gave him much to go off of—closed off every time he tried to ask a question, or else evaded, like that silver fish that used to give him grief every summer back in Port Damali. The same fish every time, that had somehow learned to swallow his bait without getting hooked. So what could Fjord do? Was he supposed to bluff? Lie? Were there other questions he could ask—better ones? Or should he push him, start an argument like Beau sometimes did? He reached up to rub against the back of his neck, the calloused pads of his fingers catching against the leather.

And, maybe that was an answer for him.

Caleb believed in reciprocity. That, at least, was something Fjord could depend on. So maybe it would be all right to just lay everything out after all, run the risk of—well, then Caleb might at least tell him something about what was going on in his head, in return.

“I know that the dodecahedron was important to you,” he said.

Caleb looked away, jaw working.

“I’m not gearing up to yell at you,” Fjord said. “I know I sort of jumped down your throat earlier—we all did, a little bit. And I’m still worried about what this means for the future, but I’ve been thinking—that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I know that it was important to you. Even if I don’t know why. I heard how you talked about it, and how determined you were to keep it when we went to that wizard’s tower. And you slept alone with it that one time right after we got it, and I don’t know if you knew, but we were all having a big argument about you at the time—”

“I knew.”

Fjord smiled. “So she did tell you. I hate to think how Nott described it. The thing about that is—I was worried, for a long time, that you didn’t really care about us.”

“You thought I would run off with it.”

“No, I didn’t think that really. But I thought if you could get something you wanted by throwing us under the bus, that you would. That you’d—protect yourself, take off if things got too hairy or you thought it would benefit.”

Caleb shrugged. He still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“And then me n’ Yasha n’ Jester were taken, and you rescued us. Nearly died doing it.”

“Please don’t tell me that you think—”

“Hey.” Fjord pressed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me finish, all right? And I couldn’t really figure it out at the time, why you did that instead of bolting, why you didn’t ask for anything in return. And then you went with us to the Coast, and that was confusing too, because it was just what I wanted, right, there was nothing in it for you. And you—you decoded that fucking journal, and you threw up that wall of fire, and nearly died again. I asked you to help right the ship, and you did. You were looking out for—for us.”

“Fjord—”

“Maybe I’m not sure, but that’s what I think. And at the Divers Grave, you nearly killed yourself because I _asked_ you to, for a favor. But I hadn’t seen—you saved our lives just now, and you did it by giving up something you’ve wanted since the beginning. Made a target of yourself in the process. I think—I think I’ve had the wrong idea about you, all this time. That’s it. That’s what I wanted to say.”

Caleb sighed, and put a hand over Fjord’s, the thick keloid stripe of the scar on his palm settling on his knuckles. It looked like he was struggling to speak. “You did not have the wrong idea about me,” he said finally. “Though you might now. I—do care about this group, Fjord. I truly do. But please don’t act like I was doing anything—noble, or self sacrificing, here. I’ve said it already. We were out of options. They were going to take us, all of us to prison, _and_ take the artifact, if they didn’t kill us on the spot. We were probably going to die. It was the only thing left to do. A risk. That’s all.”

“But _you_ did it,” Fjord said stubbornly. “The rest of us gave up—I didn’t even consider giving it away, I’d gotten so used to thinking of it as ours. But you thought of it, and you didn’t even hesitate to step out there.”

Caleb squinted at him. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

_I know that you love us. I trust you to keep us safe. I would die for you, and you would die for me, I see it all the time. Aren’t I right about that? I’ll do whatever you ask, and you’ll do whatever I ask, I see it almost every day. Am I mistaken? I haven’t believed in another person this much in a long while, and it terrifies me. You’re terrifying. Is there any way you feel—?_

“It’s like I said before. I’m happy to be alive. You saved us, got us this far. And there’s a lot of other **_shit_** going on, but—that means something. I want you to know.”

Caleb frowned, and shook his head. “I don’t—how many dozens of times have you saved me?” He squeezed Fjord’s hand briefly before releasing it, the vague confusion in his eyes giving way to something steely. “I do mean to continue helping you all, if you’ll allow me. I know everyone is worried—but I don’t think that any doors have been closed to us—forever. If we’re alive, then we can plan, and we have as many resources as obstacles now, at least. Nott will get her family back, and we will solve your worries too, find you what you need.”

Fjord barked out a laugh. “You don’t remember fucking around in the ocean for months? We’re past _that_ now, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think.” Caleb’s lips thinned. “No one will be forgotten. Not even you, Fjord, even if you’d have it otherwise.”

Fjord wanted—to do something drastic. How could he hear something like that, and not? A tidal wave of light crashed into his chest, leaving behind a light, floating feeling. It would be so easy to drift, to follow the current forward. But not now, not now, not when he wasn’t sure.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different,” he said. “After all, you remember everything, don’t you?”

“Always.”

And—that was enough. Caleb had told him something after all—maybe not all that he had hoped, but, for what he had given, it was enough.


End file.
